


Matters of Deception

by Camlann



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, SHIELD Agent Darcy Lewis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-10 20:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camlann/pseuds/Camlann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Or the way Phil found out his junior agent was in cahoots with Barnes)</p><p>If there’s something he’s learned about Darcy Lewis it’s that she’ll stick her foot into quicksand because she’s running to save someone else. So trouble finds her like she’s the brightest spot on a radar and in reality, it really isn’t her fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tempest Lewis

She’s the one that always gets into trouble, seemingly without meaning to. And it’s mostly outside of work, on days off when SHIELD isn’t watching her movements as closely because she’s trained now and she’s off the clock and she doesn’t do much of anything important.

But Phil knows better and he keeps close tabs on her, because if there’s something he’s learned about Darcy Lewis it’s that she’ll stick her foot into quicksand because she’s running to save someone else. So trouble finds her like she’s the brightest spot on a radar and in reality, it really isn’t her fault. Thor fell on her (literally), and then Loki slid on by before she started working for them, a passing name and playing on her good will towards other humans. It makes him ill after he learns that one, and a cold order is given to up her monitoring for a week or two.

It’s how he learns her habits, how he learns that she isn’t purposefully seeking these things out but generally runs to them when she sees them.

And she seems to see a lot of them. Which is why he isn’t surprised when Sitwell tells him she’s gotten into something else.

“Sitwell, you said you got a hit?”

“Did, yes. And your Lewis is there again. But you’re not going to believe this…”

And of course she’s there. It’s only February and she’s already been on four out of six cases of imminent danger this year, all on her day off. Phil makes a mental note to bring her into Strange, check her and her family history for hexes as his eyes narrow at the screen before him. And then he has to take a seat because the stranger that she’s run into looks damn familiar and not just from his own purusing would he recognize him.

That was James Barnes, one and the same as the man in the photo that sat on a fireplace where Steve has set up a few of his meager photos when he moved into the tower the agent often visits. Hair a bit longer, but besides that, basically the same. Actually, almost exactly the same if given a few years of growing up more.

How worrisome and Phil spins his chair slightly, giving Sitwell a hard look.

“What can you tell me about him?”

\----------

Winter Soldier. The name is familiar, associated with several files in the bowels of SHIELD that have gone unsolved for years. And when he thought years, he meant back to before he was alive, years.

And Darcy Lewis is giggling and flirting with a man she thinks is Russian and buying him a drink.

He doesn’t pull her out of there. It’ll cause a scene and suits might startle the other into acting… harsh with her. It couldn’t be coincidence that he ran into her, no matter how many times Darcy has tipped around a corner or opened a door and ran into people at work. It’s too good a chance and Phil’s fingers flick across a keyboard as he monitors the situation. There will be someone to pick her up outside when they’re done and he takes out his personal cell to call her in.

> [Text - Tempest Lewis] Forgot to sign something. Need it by Monday.
> 
> [SMS] Fffffffff. Be right in.

And that is that. He watches on the screen as she makes her goodbyes, the panic that shoots across her face at the text and the flailing for her bag in the booth at the place actually quirking up Phil’s lips half a bit. She’s out the door and in Ward’s car when Phil realizes that Barnes has something in his hands and it’s not his drink.

A business card. And blue-grey eyes find themselves locked onto green on screen.

Phil is the first one Darcy sees when she steps from the car. And she’s in nothing noticeable, jeans and a sweater and her bag is brown and plaid. She is the decorum of blending into the crowd unless someone wanted to count the shade of red-orange on her lips.

She gets locked down in her SHIELD quarters after the situation is explained to her, though Phil has to step out when Captain America himself gets there for a full debriefing.

Phil Coulson is more concerned about Steve Rogers bulling out into the world to track down a lost friend than he is about Darcy breaking protocol and leaving. The young woman had skills, good ones that she used like a laser pointer to get the job done. But there were few that could handle the Winter Soldier and Phil was sewing together their plans to make a full one, sending Natasha and Steve out to make the best of things.

He does check on Darcy when the other two are in route. She’s a shade too grey and a tad too quiet, but she is working on backlogged paperwork to keep herself busy and his hand on her shoulder relaxes her enough to get her to say that she didn’t mean to do this. Again.

“I know.”

Her gaze is on him and she nods, bowing her head because it’s almost always her. She once said she was Daphne in this Scooby-Doo bus of an agency. Always caught but only when trying to help. And Phil had sent her into training to at least protect herself better, and she was pretty good with Judo, if he did say so himself from her tests.

But he’s gone just as soon as he arrived and she’s the one taking the deep breath and putting her nose to the grindstone late into the night.


	2. Enemy You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walk past the break room. Get coffee. Then come find me. I do not need you talking to me without your coffee. If there be donuts, bring two. In command central for visual and audio.  
> \- Dee

They do, eventually, catch Barnes and bring him in.

Eventually.

And he asks if Darcy wants to be the one to ask him questions, having already faced him once, but the woman actually bursts out with a, “HA!” and tells him no way in Hell is she going down there. And then realizes she’s talking to her boss, sobers, and goes no thank you.

It was worth a shot and he sends in Steve, instead. And that goes… stiffly, like he was afraid it would. Barnes doesn’t remember him and with the way Natasha is acting, he’s hesitant to put her into the same room as the other assassin just yet. He’ll let her gain her feet after the words they’d said when fighting before Steve had brought the other soldier down. It’s hit something in her and Phil is perhaps one of two to notice. But he hands over files to her, asks her to figure out what happened to him because she’s the leading expert on Red Room they have.

And then the world needs saving and for once, Darcy is in SHIELD headquarters and not out in the battle. Red Skull really is a bastard at the best of times, but that he chooses now sends the Captain out into the field against an old enemy, old friends at his back as ghosts, and Phil watches as something dark overcomes the man he watches over and handles files for when a blue and shining cube is presented before him.

Phil finds that the day goes by slowly. Very slowly and at the end of it, he has two soldiers to look after that aren’t quite in their right minds.

Which is where Agent Lewis comes in, a shining beacon with tea and a bagel and reports. She’s been given over to monitoring Barnes because there was no one else that could when everyone was focused on the threat at hand. Her clearance really isn’t high enough, but knowing Thor as she does makes keeping some things from her harder than others. And there are handwritten notes with loopy shadings in the margins that she hands over, asking if he needs anything and wondering if she could talk to him just for a moment.

Because she had to call medical at the end of the battle for Barnes. Which… didn’t seem right and Phil flipped through her findings, told her to sit, and quickly fast forwarded to the clip she’s talking about.

Barnes is examining the area around him closer than before when something makes him jump. And Phil hasn’t ever seen someone have a heart attack, but it looks like that’s what happened as the soldier in containment looks like he can’t breath and then he hits his knees, hand to his head because his bionic one has been taken due to the damage it can deal.

“You did good,” Phil comments, glancing at Darcy as she shuffles in her seat. He’s tired, she looks concerned, and he doesn’t know if it’s because of him or the situation. “Thank you, Miss Lewis. You’re free to go back to your quarters.”

“Dude, I’m not the one that looks like he got hit by a truck.”

“Darcy…”

“No and no. Go check on Captain Beefcake then go to bed, I’ll review what happened. A lot of the research is going to go through me anyways to compile for you, might as well look into it myself.”

“Do you have clearance for that?”

“Do you want me to call Doctor Mathers in here to stick you with a hypo?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

“What luck?”

“Fair point.”

She’s right though, Steve needs someone right now with his friends out of town or researching, and Phil has a team he can rely on to get things done for clean up. When tomorrow rolls around though, he’s right back in his office and glad he got down to medical when he did. Steve had been out cold after the fight and no one had known when he’d wake up. But with the serum, he’d been awake, if completely incoherent, about the time Phil went to see him.

That he has a note on his desk rather than a report surprises him, having long become used to Darcy’s forms of communication, but this was new as he got up and followed the directions on the sticky pad.

> _Walk past the break room. Get coffee. Then come find me. I do not need you talking to me without your coffee. If there be donuts, bring two._
> 
> _In command central for visual and audio._
> 
> _\- Dee_

That he brings her a chocolate donut and coffee, herself, has Phil gaining a quiet cheer before she hands over the PADD to him as she clicks through things at her computer terminal.

“This is the time stamp I have for Barnes’ collapse. Do you want to know what was happening when this was going down? Because it’s the lesser of the two.”

“Show me.”

“It’s not pretty. It’s Cap, Phil.”

And there in clear video is Steve Rogers bolting at Johann Schmidt and tumbling down with him, taking off and leaving the man behind. Strange, if Phil didn’t know what came next. A red gauntlet around a blue cube and a flash of blinding light that dissipates to find Captain America on the ground. Phil had been on comms when it happened. He’d called out the big guns to get them out of there, Stark swooping in to lift the Captain and take him away. And as he brings up Barnes’ video next to it, he can see that he had missed something very important.

“Thank you. You should get some sleep.”

“Way ahead of you, Boss Man. I’m heading that way now. Just had to show you that. My butt is going to bed. Yes, Sir.”

He walks with her part of the way but Darcy is not there for him sliding into Steve’s room to ask what the Hell he’d done.

Magic. It was going to be the death of all of them one day, Phil was sure of it.


	3. Danger Mouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don’t bring home an ogre or a dragon.

Turns out he’d released the energy of the Tesseract into the universe with a wish. And Phil had a very long discussion with the Captain about it before he checked on Barnes’ in the secure medical chamber. He didn’t look… well. But he looked about as rigid as ever. And he wasn’t answering questions, wasn’t even talking so much. And Phil wonders if he’s caught in his own head, but there’s no way to prove that. He’s awake, he eats, he sleeps. That’s all they can really ask for.

It seems that after the first couple days, the young woman who sits outside his office gains her courage to slip into it and ask if she should go see him. Phil says yes and to watch her put on her, ‘I’m going to talk and you’re going to like it’ face makes him wonder what he’s just unleashed on the poor man downstairs.

What Phil has learned is that Darcy Lewis is a people person. That she asks questions, sometimes random, sometimes sincere, but she’s always asking them. The agent flips on his monitor and waits, knowing that whatever she ends up even piecing together from him might be useful later. She may not realize she’s done it, of course. But Barnes will be on video and analyzing the situation could be exactly what they need.

A new factor and Phil watches Darcy slip into the room, an agent by the door behind her.

“You create this much gobbly-gook wherever you go?”

Phil’s lips kick up slightly and Barnes’ brow furrows over the feed. She’s, if anything, caught his attention and Phil has to admit that no one else could be Darcy Lewis. She’s scared, terrified actually from the way she keeps rocking on her heels instead of her toes. And she keeps shifting her weight, even though her arms are crossed and her face the perfect pouting frown.

“You know how much paperwork you generate? Jesus. You have a business card of mine, I’d like it back.”

Barnes’ stays quiet but Phil can see where he doesn’t quite know how to handle this woman in his current state. She’s not asking for answers, she’s not digging for anything, she’s being plain and simple.

Simple could confuse the most complex.

“You just gonna sit there?”

Nothing.

“Fine. I still expect my business card back. That had valuable information on it that I need.” And she is wavering, Phil can see it, with the hard stare on her. He just catches what she mumbles as she turns to the door, arms dropping and feet almost stamping out the path. “Damn superheroes and their damn pasts coming back to bite us all in the ass. Have to go yell at Cap, now, for being stupid. Only man a girl can trust is her Daddy, bullshit.”

And then she’s gone from the room and Barnes is stock still before he slowly leans back into his pillows and considers his door. It’s more than most have gotten out of him, attention or focus or whatever Phil wanted to call that look on his face as he tried to figure out what just happened and why. If it was a ploy or not.

He wished the man luck, he really did. Because sometimes Phil wasn’t even sure when Darcy came bounding in and going right back out what to do with her.

\----------

Darcy had meant to ask a different question it turns out and Phil finds her looking into a mug in the junior agent lounge, brow furrowed and lips frowning.

“Is it really that obvious I’m the weakest link?” she asks when he slides into the chair across from her, having worried when she hadn’t come back to her desk immediately. Her gaze comes up to him and Phil sighs as she keeps going. “I mean, it’s always me isn’t it. I’m like a danger magnet. Not as cool as Danger Mouse but still.”

“Is that why you wanted to talk to him?”

“Yea. I just want to know why me. Why do I get all the crazies.”

“Perhaps because you accept people as they are. That’s a rare gift, Miss Lewis.”

“I guess.”

Phil watches this young woman before him, not the same as he remembers her in New Mexico. She’s withdrawn a little, kept herself in more check than he’d thought she would, and yet she still sometimes burst through in bright colors when they worked in the shadows. Darcy Lewis, no matter what her future held for her, would always be in color where their world tried to place everything in shades of grey.

The agent walks her to her room and says goodnight, the blanket over Darcy’s shoulders from the living area as she scrubs at her eyes and slips away. It’s not until the next day that he sends out the email requesting that Agent Lewis be put into advanced evasion training. She needs it, he types out, glancing up to watch her sway her head to a beat only she can hear outside his office as she works through a box of files at her feet. He lists instances where higher clearance would benefit her knowledge of enemies, where tactical training would give her a better advantage in avoiding the consistent interactions she’s been having with high grade villains.

The approval comes in by lunchtime and Phil lays Darcy’s new schedule on her desk to a squeak of, “I’m not a field agent, though!”

“No, but you’ve proven time and again that this is what needs to be done.”

“... My brain’s gonna be sore, isn’t it?”

“More than likely, yes.”

“Welp. Onward and upward. Better in than out, I always say.”

“Darcy.”

“... Yes?”

“Don’t bring home an ogre or a dragon.”

She lights up with a laugh that hasn’t been heard since she was told to stay on SHIELD soil and Phil thinks that he’s at least done two good things today. That she practically ice skates through the hallways on her new flats helps assure him she’ll be just fine, even if the cross-hairs were on her for a little bit.

His work revolves around world protection, not world peace, and he keeps watch over his team, all of them, as they go about their routines in house. Ward and Skye are arguing, Fitz and Simmons are doing… something in the labs, and May is talking shop with Quartermain if the texts he keeps getting from the man asking for backup are accurate. There’s a skipping beat outside his office of feet tapping to an iPod and a pale but better looking Captain is leaning in his doorway after a cheer from Darcy outside.

Everything, it seems, worked out fairly well. Even if the past was sitting, hovering at the corners of their eyes.


	4. Never Let ‘Em See You Falter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And he forgets that she’s worked with Selvig and Jane sometimes, that her default is to bring food and drink to the quiet ones working as she slips into his office to deposit lunch and tea.

It takes weeks to realize that Winter Soldier not only remembers being James Barnes but remembers being Bucky as well. He’s quiet, he doesn’t talk, only when Natasha goes to visit him does he even start to respond in quiet snaps and non-answers. Phil is at the end of his rope with that man, especially because he goes home every night that he can to reports from Natasha of a Captain who keeps waking up in a cold sweat from the memories Barnes has pulled up.

He’s stressed and it must show right in the corners of his eyes, behind his plain smile, to get his assistant’s attention. He forgets that she’s worked with Selvig and Jane sometimes, that her default is to bring food and drink to the quiet ones working as she slips into his office to deposit lunch and tea. An idea sparks and he remembers the confusion in Barnes at the woman before him, gabbering away about a report that a younger agent ‘totally’ has because she gave it to him last week and if he lost it, all he has to do is ask for the e-copy of it, Jesus.

“Miss Lewis, I have a special assignment for you,” Phil speaks up, typing up a few notes and pressing print on his screen. He puts them all into a folder from a drawer in his desk and hands over the metal casing, brow rising as Darcy eyes him and the documents being handed to her. “Do you accept the challenge?”

“Always,” she said, snatching up the folder and flipping it open. A quick survey of it told Phil all he needed to know. Her blue-green eyes were wide and she’d swallowed hard but she’d nodded and gave a little salute. “Lets do this.”

Then she’s gone and Phil is pulling up the feed of the more comfortable detainment room that has housed Barnes ever since he’s came out of medical.

Darcy is not an interrogator, but she understands people on levels that are are more feeling and less skill. Phil needs someone to crack this egg yolk, one that isn’t from a shared past that is slowly spinning around them. If he thought it possible, he would have said that Red Room sent in Barnes specifically to deal a blow to the good Captain and one of their best agents. But he highly doubts that Barnes was supposed to be caught, or to remember, as well. With so many factors spinning aimlessly through space, perhaps bringing in someone from outside it all was the best they could do.

“I don’t have your business card.”

And it seems, at the very least, they were off to a better start than most as James glared at the young woman that had slipped into the room with a guard.

“Yeah, well. Didn’t expect you to, not like you could have gone out and got it. And we confiscated your clothes, go us. Wasn’t there either.”

“You rifled through my clothes?”

“Pssh. _No_. A highly skilled team did and they _informed_ me that what you took was lost. But I got a new one anyways.”

“You speak quickly and far too much.”

“Better than being quiet and sullen,” Darcy all but sang at the man, and Phil could almost see the temptation from where he sat for his assistant to stick her tongue out at Barnes. She was bolstering herself up, he’d seen her do it before when she’d first met Fury. Hiding in plain sight. “Thank you very much, though. Someone needs to be in this place. All these people, all highly skilled, and you can’t even hear them coming down the hallway. No Sir. Pad like big jungle cats all over the place, I’d rather have someone know I’m coming if they’re carrying hot coffee around the corner.”

And she’s off, asking Barnes questions without even looking at her folder, though she does point with it to make, well, points.

Eventually, he starts to respond and Phil leans closer to his monitor, taking notes when Barnes does. Because Darcy isn’t asking for information, or not much. And there’s things already on file from Natasha’s interactions with him. But this young woman that he doesn’t know gets an earful of quiet telling off and Darcy just doesn’t stop, pacing and talking and treating this soldier like everyone else she’s ever had to talk to that ranks higher than her.

With respect but like they were human. Even the ones that weren’t necessarily human.

She finds out that Steve’s name comes with a hardening of lines around his eyes, though perhaps Darcy doesn’t notice that. She does, however, avoid the subject and Phil can almost hear her talking about the vibes people give off as she reroutes and restarts with something more entertaining. Is she really asking him what books he wants? Because he has to be bored in there? And she continues on from that, using her seemingly vast knowledge of pop culture to win over little pieces of data before she slips out with a list and marches right back up to his office.

“He is bored out of his skull, lets get him stuffs.”

“Is that your official report, Miss Lewis?”

“Hey now. I’m just doing what you asked. But yea, it is part of it. He needs things to do. He’s wilting in there without them. Bet he’s trying to keep his mind off things and we have taken all options away from him. By the by, he’s way less charming than I originally thought he was. Like, dude was real slick when we first met and he rifled through my purse. Now, not so much.”

“Write it up.”

“Yep! On my way.”

She bounces out and Phil wonders if she realizes what she’s done in the work towards freeing a man from his past. The agent doesn’t think so as he glances back at the video feed, but he has to think that she’s done something with how still the other is in containment.


	5. For Your Protection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was going to have to talk to her about this, wasn’t he?

Eventually, things right themselves just enough to be considered normal for the people around the agency. The Captain and Natasha work with Bucky here and there for short periods of time, Steve’s time shorter than anyone’s as he tries not to be as distant as he could be. Phil watches it all and goes out time and again to pick up relics from other worlds with his team, and the only improvement he’s seeing is that the world hasn’t ended when it could have time and again.

But it’s slowly coming together and he drops a file on Darcy’s desk to find her… not there. Checking his watch, he knows that she should be there as it’s too early for lunch and too late for coffee (her words, not his). He’s been away. Away short enough that if she didn’t come in off a day off, it wouldn’t be so noticeable yet, but it would still be recorded. Long enough though that if she did drop off the radar, then they’re all a little bit behind.

She checked into the building at four that morning. So where the Hell was she?

It takes a scan for where her badge has been used for him to figure it out, the woman not showing up during his search, though Phil’s gaze does flicker to her empty seat more than once. She’s a good worker, and even though she’s learning now how to make things better when her days off become days on, he still needs to check.

She’s his responsibility, as much as anyone else on the team is. There’s a reason he’s in the position and office he is, and this is one of them. The ability to juggle multiple teams. Darcy Lewis is on his home team, someone who is there when he gets off the plane at base with a tea or coffee, depending on the hour, and a list of what’s been going on. At the moment? She is exactly the last place he thought she would be, even though he was he one who gave her clearance to go in there, even though it was supposed to be one assignment.

He was going to have to talk to her about this, wasn’t he? Because her heels are off, her hand is on her ankle, she’s using her flowing skirt as a blanket over her knees, and she talking with her other hand, in which there is a book that she’s obviously trying to either make Barnes read or hit him in the face with.

Depending on what he’s said about it, it could be either or both, and Phil flips on the audio.

“Do you realize what a classic this is?”

“It’s not something I would read.”

“Dude. Classics are classics for a reason. Streetcar Named Desire is something you should read!”

“It’s a play.”

“Don’t sound so scornful. So is Shakespeare and he’s awesome.”

“Is he now?”

“Well, yeah! No one talks like that anymore, you know? And he’s real good with the insults. Like, you try biting your thumb at someone. It’s totally known but they’ll be taken aback. And do you know how many words Shakespeare made up? Okay, maybe didn’t make up. But he’s the first recorded instance we have of them? Like that is _killer_ , man. It’s just, so insane to think that some words we use everyday weren’t around until freaking Shakespeare made them up in his brain material.”

“Do you have to call it that?”

“Insane in the membrane better for you?”

“... not particularly.”

“Then I cannot help you.”

Phil wonders if he should be more worried about Darcy lax way with an assassin (and how long she’d been going down there) or with the way said assassin is looking at _her_.

She’s pristine as ever when she wanders back up to her desk, waving at him through the glass and he wishes he could talk to her right then. Instead, there’s an important call on the line, he’s being asked about his policies with his team and the BUS, and Phil has to concentrate on the powers that be trying to interfere in his teamwork. By the time he’s done, however, there is a report in his inbox and Darcy is standing in his doorway looking proud. He raises an eyebrow at her that makes her offer a more wheedling grin as she steps forward and sets a file on his desk.

“There we go. One boy scout from the 40s observations on a couple things.”

“A couple things? You do, of course, realize that your authorization to speak with Sergeant Barnes ended when you turned in your last report.”

“... Did it?”

“Yes, Agent Lewis.”

“Oh.”

She looks innocent enough but she’s not meeting his eyes and normally, that’s not a problem, even when in trouble. Which means she knew what she’d been doing and the way that Phil frowns at her makes the young woman step back towards his door.

Which only makes him frown harder.

“Sit.”

She looks ready to bolt, but Darcy makes a noise, cringes, and finally slips into the seat across from his desk. Phil folds his hands over the blotter there and studies her, where she’s a little red about the gills and frowning down at her hands.

“How long have you been going to see him?”

“Only since the beginning of this week.”

“Why?”

“I thought he’d be able to answer my question?”

“Is that a question?”

“I just. I mean I wanted to. Okay, see. Here’s the deal. You weren’t here. And I have been worried up and down I’m just this obvious target. Like, mucho grande obvious when I walk out those key carded doors. And I wanted to know. And you weren’t here and I wanted to maybe show I wasn’t…”

She trails off. Unlike her to not speak her mind and Phil sees her weighing her words. Not the first time she’s done it, but Darcy normally speaks what she feels. Meant she was as confused as she looked, trying to figure it out.

“You weren’t afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.”

“... Yeah. And that he knew it too.”

Darcy is finally looking him in the eye and her honesty rolls off of her. There’s a pause before he nods, leaning back in his chair and flipping open the file she’s handed him after a moment or two longer. She stays right where she is, as if waiting, before his gaze leaves her for the page and he can hear the sigh of relief.

“No more.”

“Right.”

“Darcy, I mean it. Unless I give you specific authorization for this, you can no longer go see James Barnes in his cell.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“You realize what you’ve done, right?”

“Broke all sorts of protocol and put myself in danger?”

“And?”

“Uh.” Darcy puts a piece of hair behind her ear and furrows her brow, almost pouting as she thinks. “No go. I thought that would be the list you’d give me when you got back.”

“Made yourself a shining target, Agent Lewis.”

“What?”

Her skin is suddenly very pale and Phil has to remember that she’s not been trained up like some of them. Certainly not for the clearance she holds, but with the whirlwind that is her life, she’s needed the access. Not only for the knowledge of Thor’s forever-slipping-out-of-their-grasp brother, but because she already knew half the incidents, just not the facts.

And in this job, sometimes she needed the facts to make the calls on what Phil needed in a report or not. So she’s learning, but she’s still very young.

“Darcy,” Phil starts quietly, gaze softening on her as he sets the report aside and comes around his desk. He sits next to her, the worry on her face only enhanced by the chewing of her lip. “You’ve made yourself a face standing out in the crowd. He knows you now. We can’t be sure what triggers still lie in him from Red Room, a place you know very little about. And you’ve made him know your name.”

“Oh. Oh God.”

“No more, alright? You stay far away from him and if anything happens, stick close to Thor or the Captain, understand?”

“Yeah. _Yes_. I promise.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

Darcy stands on somewhat slow to respond knees and moves to the door. Phil, watching her, stops her right before she goes.

“I know you had good intentions.”

“Those pave the road to Hell though, right?”

“They can. Or they help. You’re not in trouble.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She looks so hopeful, so relieved, and Phil gives a small smile at her that has Darcy smiling back at full brightness. There’s worry in her eyes but she’s going to follow what he says. He knows she will and that’s really all he can ask from her at this time. That and further training. It’s becoming more and more obvious that she needs it, that she has to work for those clearance levels she’s earned by knowing Thor.

He intends to make sure she gets there un-scarred, for the most part. Even in SHIELD, there should be a little bit of color, and if Darcy wasn’t it, who would it be? The Avengers were based in the tower, far away from there. The labs were filled with quiet types and he’d yanked the two loudest (and some of the youngest) from the same fate to the BUS. Now? He had to make sure this young one before him was just as safe when he wasn’t here.

Darcy Lewis, Phil decided as he watched her tuck her feet under her at her desk chair, was about to undergo some serious training.

Hopefully, it would be for the best and not kill the spirit that fought inside her.


	6. Shotgun Sunset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d done all he could do for the time being. Now to see if it panned out.

He asks about her one week. James Barnes, after a month of not seeing the bright assistant that Phil keeps under his wing, asks after her. It’s all quiet words and plain language, something from a different era. An era Phil knows well because it sometimes comes at him from the kitchen at the tower, the Captain standing there young and bright and laughing with him.

Phil hardens at it, because it shouldn’t be directed at the young woman dragging in from firearms training after lunch. So he makes it a point to go see James himself. When he walks into the room, Barnes straightens in his chair where he’s fiddling with a few books. The agent takes in the titles and realizes that some of the suggestions from Miss Lewis were at the bottom of the stack, but were the ones that seemed to have been read, with paper in the pages as bookmarks.

Perhaps to talk to her about later.

Phil Coulson turns a bit cool outwardly as his chest warms sadly. A friend could help many people through the worst of times. One that didn’t bring the pain of past trauma? It might have paid to keep Darcy in James’ loop, but he couldn’t risk it. As much as he understood the somewhat expendable nature of being an agent, a few things had changed since he’d come back from… ‘Tahiti.’ Phil didn’t like the idea of his team being up for the chopping block anymore, or left behind just because everyone knew they'd make it out alive even without backup. Of course, he was never alright with that last part.

Jemma had been hard enough to see fall, though at least he’d been able to get her back. Thankfully for Ward and Fitz’s states of mind. To lose someone in color at headquarters would put a sure dent in his own routine and efficiency.

(Or that would be how he sold it to the powers that be. Instead of how he cared, how he wouldn’t let his family down. They’d say he’s getting soft. He thinks he might be getting stronger with the ideas and support base, and that might scare them more.)

“Sergeant.”

“Sir.”

A response. Good. He could see the ideas clicking behind the other’s eyes before they went dark, narrowing on him and Phil thinks he might understand.

Because everything about his stay has been the same but Darcy. And this little visit.

It’s not a hard connection, to see that his new questions had led to this. Though to what end? The ideas flicker through Phil’s own head. Possibilities of why Darcy can’t come. The extremes were gone to dead. Neither looked like they’d sit well with the healing man in front of him, for whatever reason. He was suspicious and Phil couldn’t blame him.

“You seem to have taken a shine to my assistant.”

“So you’re the Big Guy she talks about. I thought you’d be taller.”

“That would be Thor. Who if he finds out you’ve put any sort of danger around her, might run you through with a hammer. It’s not suggested. He’s very protective.”

“... Hammer?”

“Thor. God of Thunder. Very few have not heard of him. However, that is not why I’m down here.”

There’s a pause and James’ feet plant more firmly on the floor. Phil expects him to stand but he stays still in his seat. His gaze doesn’t even flicker and if the agent was a lesser man, he might be scared. He was, however, not easily swayed by such things. At least, not outwardly. There’s no tick, no tell, but he’s been following the story of Captain America and the Howling Commandos since he was a child. He didn’t know them, not personally, or he hadn’t for a long time. Between Captain Rogers and Dum Dum Dugan, he thinks he might have found quite the few to base his opinions off of. The stories of the man in front of him? Gave him an edge like no other.

He still doesn’t expect the bluntness of the next question, though, nor the use of her first name.

“Where’s Darcy?”

“Miss Lewis is currently at her desk, bemoaning her sore feet after a rigorous training session.”

“She’s paperwork.”

“And you trust her not to lie to you?”

“I’d know if she did. She’s not good at it. What’s she got to be trained for?”

“You.”

That stops the other in his tracks, enough to make him blink. Phil thinks he’s hit on the idea he should run with as he moves to sit in what might have been deemed Darcy’s spot. It’s part of the sofa in the room, the only place someone else could sit next to the Sergeant without being on his bed. Steve takes the table between them. Natasha stays standing or as far from him as possible.

The eyes of the soldier harden when Phil takes the young woman’s place and the agent raises a brow in question. Interesting.

“You see, you’re not exactly free to leave. And we’re not quite sure what intentions you’d have if you were to.”

Silence.

“Not yet at least. You can see why your interest in her is… an unfortunate coincidence.”

“You think I’d hurt her.”

“We don’t know. We’re taking precautions. Knowing Miss Lewis as you do, you will notice that she’s not trained to take an assault from a trained assassin. If you were to reach out and take matters into your own hands while she was in here-”

“I wouldn’t kill her.”

“Again, Sergeant Barnes, we have no way of knowing that. You refuse to work with us fully, what conversations you have with those that know you are stilted, and you downright scare the therapist we send in here to speak with you about matters.”

“I wouldn’t.”

Phil pauses. He can see the man closing off, cracks sealing where they’d been slowly leaking out into the space around him. The Captain has gotten barked laughter from him and minor positive reactions as he explains about the differences of the world, Agent Romanoff has gotten frowns and yelling and more negative as he attempts to not talk about Russia. Books line a small shelf, there’s a mat where he works out, and Barnes has slowly been moving, growing, and not so tense.

That is not the man in front of Phil now. Despite the small interactions, a week’s worth, Darcy has proven a positive factor in this whole equation. The choice was his to make whether to keep her there or not.

“I know you wouldn’t. But I can’t prove that, so for the time being she has been removed from your case and put into other work.”

The soldier is silent again and Phil wonders if he cares for the young woman at all or if she was just something _different_. She had somehow been something to hang onto for the confused and captured man in front of him. He’d heard tales from the Captain about the wandering eye of his friend, that dates were the norm, but if he had someone he stuck with them, because it wasn’t like they had many people who did that. Stuck around.

So why was Barnes sticking with someone he didn’t know versus the ones that he did? The pain of the past? The pain of the present not being as he remembers suddenly?

That Darcy didn’t see him as anything but what he was allowed to build up himself in his now new world?

Perhaps all of them. Phil can’t know. James won’t talk to any of them about it. But he might talk to Darcy about it. The agent is not above taking risks _for_ people, if he’s slowly stopped taking risks _with_ people. So he sits forward, elbows on his knees, linked fingers in front of them.

“Talk to us and I’ll make sure you see you again.”

“You’re… using her as leverage?”

“No. As incentive. Very different.”

“Sounds like a bribe.”

Phil shrugs and stands, buttoning his suit jacket again before he moves to the door. Pausing before he knocks to be let out, the agent turns to look over his shoulder at the Sergeant. There’s something there, he doesn’t know what it is, but his gut tells him that the gaze on him is more curious and pained than upset. More accepting than stubborn.

“I think she misses talking to you, too.”

The gaze that has slowly drifted to the rug snaps back to Phil and he shrugs again. Darcy had found someone she could take a few moments to be teacher to that week. In SHIELD, she had started out of her depth, ended up halfway through tired and scared, and come full circle to working within her depth but still sometimes looking around and wondering if she was doing the right thing. He could see it on her face in meetings. She didn’t hide it well, no matter how much she tried. Her expressions were legendary by this point around the workplace, and Phil gives a small grin as he disappears out the door.

Maybe he did something good today, giving the young man back a friend and giving Darcy someone she could feel like she was helping.

He’d done all he could do for the time being. Now to see if it panned out.


	7. Beyond: Two Starts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What are you doing for lunch?

It almost works. Almost. But when someone tries to get to the man in SHIELD’s cell to kill him because he knows too much, everything is locked down and James Barnes determines he’s a threat to the facility and the people around him. He doesn’t say it like that, of course, but with him tucked behind the Captain and Agent Romanoff, Phil can see it in his frowning features.

Instead, James asks for his arm back. Everything stalls on that point. He could protect himself with it… but he could also do a Hell of a lot of damage with it.

The decision isn’t left to Phil. It gets taken to Fury.

Who gives the man what he wants. None of them really know what to do with that but they do as ordered. James Barnes is a free man, able to walk and talk and move about SHIELD areas as if he’s a low level agent. It’s odd but it’s a quick adjustment as he goes into the war room with Steve and stands at his flank.

“If I’m going to bring Hell down on your heads, I can at least be useful about it.”

It’s a mumbled statement and everyone forgets about what’s come before. Well, not forgets all of it, but his issue with the young woman that holds down the fort in Phil’s office flickers out of mind for a long while. Months, in fact, where being out of the cell does more for Barnes’ recovery than anything else. The sparring matches with the Captain and eventually Natasha, the discussions with agents he takes to training when they all go in for target practice and to refresh their firearm skills, the communal lunches where his sense of humor and sarcasm comes out. The long road to being let out into the world shortens considerably and then comes the day that he seeks out Phil, personally. Steve has emailed him, said Bucky was coming up to thank him for not giving in when he asked now that he knows a bit of background on the handler, the Avengers, and the Captain’s time out of the ice.

Phil curses softly to himself as James enters, watching through shatterproof glass windows and door as the soldier stumbles upon Darcy’s desk and realizes exactly where the young woman works. He thought he would have forgotten about her in the days between. Apparently, as Jame eyes the orange peacoat that Darcy has taken to wearing in the winter, he hasn’t.

It’s obvious it’s hers. No one else would dare here.

Then there’s the click of the door behind the soldier and in waltzes Agent Lewis, sputtering into her phone that’s caught between her chin and her shoulder as she wields a few boxes of reports that need to be filed and archived. Phil thinks he can get to the door before Barnes says anything. Instead, he hesitates as the soldier moves to help, and takes to flipping on the audio to the room outside his office as the man says hello.

“Oh sweet baby Jesus.”

“Is that your ‘thank you’ for the help?”

Darcy stalls and quickly makes mention she has to go into her phone, the boxes out of her arms now out of her view as well, as James blinks at her from around them. She obviously hasn’t noticed who had taken her boxes until she heard him and Phil can almost see the words he, himself, has said in the past replay in her head as she stares. A quick blink and she's righting herself, scoffing at the soldier.

“ _No_. This is. Thank you for helping a lady out. You here to see Coulson?”

“I was.”

“Was it past tense. Give me that.”

She’s got the top box in her hands, tugging it off the other one as she moves to her desk. His windows aren’t one way, she knows he’s in, but cool blue-green eyes only flash to the agent for a second before they return to the soldier who is standing with the rest of her records.

“He’s in.”

“I see that.”

“Then why aren’t you in?”

“In where?”

“Uh. His office? Go dude, go?”

“Was helping a lady with her boxes.”

“This lady got helped. Now go talk to Mr. Smith and I’ll just pop these bad boys open. You know. Doing work and all? Like, why I’m here?”

Darcy moves to take her last box back. James refuses to give it. The young woman tugs and pulls before she glares over the top of the box. Phil is just as confused, watching the scene play out in front of him. Curious. Wary. Wondering if he really has to have ‘the talk’ with James Barnes about his assistant from the way the soldier’s eyes are locked on Miss Lewis.

“Give ‘em.”

“And if I don’t?”

“This pretty little heel is going through your pretty little foot?”

“Such a threat.”

“Hey, best I got right now. What could you possibly want with old records?”

“They as old as me?”

That brings Darcy up short, not sure if he’s serious or not. Not sure if she should laugh or not by the way she eyes James sideways with one eye somewhat squinted.

“No. Well. Maybe. Don’t know. Haven’t opened them yet.”

“What are you doing for lunch?”

“Wait. _What_?”

“Lunch. You eat, right?”

“This all seems very deja vu.”

“I’m not looking to steal a card off you this time.”

“Good to know. You’ve already stolen my box though.”

“Not stolen. Holding.”

“Well un-hold it.”

“Gotta answer the question first.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s polite.”

“Dude. I’m all for polite. But like, Boss Man. Right there.”

“He can hear us too.”

Darcy spins, hands on her hips and glares right at the agent in his office. Phil doesn’t even have the decency to look bothered. He raises one shoulder in a half shrug and the young woman looks like she wants to yell at both of them now.

“Assholes.”

“That’s your boss.”

“And my friend. Now give me my box and leave me alone.”

She finally yanks the records from him and goes to sit, standing so that her desk chair is hitting the back of her legs, Phil watching Barnes carefully as she does so. The soldier knows he’s being watched, just doesn’t seem to care as he follows after her like a ghost. Haunting her steps enough that it prickles the hair at the back of Phil’s neck, because that was silent and deadly footsteps but the look on the other’s face.

He knew that look. He’d _worn_ that look. It was confused curiosity and he’d had it on him the entire day that the Captain told him to call him Steve (if Maria was anyone to trust about that sort of thing, though she did cite video proof at the time).

Well... Shit.

“Why won’t you have lunch with me?”

“Oh Jesus. Why can’t you just go to your meeting?”

Darcy has turned once more to the other and Phil can see her plant her feet. She’s wary, anxious, and looks like she’d rather be anywhere else. But she’s not one to back down and so, her arms cross her chest and she stares the assassin in front of her down as best she can, being almost a head shorter than he is.

“Tell me why I should go.”

“Because you left.”

Even Phil double blinks, trying to put together what the other means. Then it dawns on him a few moments before it dawns on his assistant. Darcy has the decency to drop her arms, shuffling on her feet.

“I didn’t leave. I couldn’t come.”

“I read the books you got for me.”

“Told you that you’d like them.”

“Didn’t say I liked ‘em. Said I read ‘em.”

“Same diff.”

“You still talk too differently for me to understand sometimes.”

“You’ll learn.”

“You going to teach me then?”

“I… No?”

She’s faltering and Phil has seen her do this with Thor, too. Darcy is a sucker for handsome guys and pretty girls, wavering when they ask real nice, and he wonders if she realizes that her willingness to give everyone a chance was what got her into trouble the most. Some people just couldn’t be trusted. Her gut was getting better at telling her which was which, but she still opened her heart to each and every one.

It’s what made her such a damn good person, someone Phil had plucked from Jane’s fingers for his own team, as she sighs and glances over her shoulder at him. Phil remains blank faced and quirks a brow at her before she looks back to James, whose gaze hadn’t moved since it had fallen on her.

“You said lunch?”

“Just one. See how you like it.”

“You’re a butt.”

“.....”

“It’s not a compliment. Go get ‘em, tiger. I’m hungry.”

James turns finally to the door of the office and Phil has to keep his gaze guarded. The soldier is smiling, something softer than normal, though definitely not loopy. Just a little quirk of his lips, the same thing he gets around the Captain and Romanoff.

Darcy has done that. All on her own without any history. Maybe… maybe it was about time to let the two of them be.

“Sergeant Barnes.”

“Agent Coulson.”

“What can I help you with?”

And the day goes on, though Phil has a strange call from the cafeteria about his assistant stuffing mashed potatoes into the assassin’s face. He doesn’t know quite what to do with that when she comes back calm and collected and just as happy as she ever is. He’s guessing that, all things considered, it could have gone worse.

Much, much worse.


	8. Carry Me Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then Fury called. Said he was in medical. And that Miss Lewis sends her regards.

They have lunch and nothing comes of it. It takes months for Phil to even spot them together other than those few times they take meals at the same time. Darcy has promised not to make a mess in the lunchroom anymore, so the most he hears about their interactions is that she often throws plastic cutlery at the Sergeant and this has only prompted him to sit next to instead of across from her.

Granted, he can catch it before it hits him, but it's apparently the principle of the thing.

No, nothing comes of their interactions like Phil thought might, or so he thought until he hears about another incident. It’s Darcy, because it’s always Darcy on her day off, and this time it’s not something light and terrifying. This time someone’s got her blood on their hands and she’s in medical, gasping against an oxygen mask as she tries to ask for Phil.

He’s been there, watched her eyes glaze over and roll back as she tries to stay conscious. He feels a little ill, looking at the cuts on her and the way she’s bruised at being held down with a gun to her head. They’re looking for information, (aren’t they always?) and the reason that Centipede has been shut down. They were stronger and Darcy has been unlucky enough to be in the blast range of the woman as she goes up in flames.

Burns, cuts, bruising, trauma. A gunshot wound to her shoulder and he’s coming out of the room so she can go into surgery because she’s downright refused to sit still until she can see him. That’s where he finds the Sergeant, tense and eyes speaking of Hell fire as he glances at him, asking to be told what happened. If Barnes knows, the Captain will get informed. If the Captain is informed, the Avengers will be called. But Thor already has been because when he’s planet-side, he’s apparently one of Darcy’s emergency contacts, and Phil calls them all to a conference room to explain who exactly Centipede is.

The look of horror on Steve’s face as he realizes what they’re attempting, the set of Barnes’ jaw as he glances at his friend, the stormy look on Thor’s face as thunder rolls in the background, all signal that the group has just gotten more than they’ve bargained for. Phil can’t stop them when they suit up and go out. He can’t even go with them, because he has to follow other protocol. It’s a rush to catch up to them, Stark and JARVIS breaking into places to track down the experiments quicker than should be allowed, and then SHIELD comes in for cleanup because Fury holds them back. Tells them to stand down, let the Avengers handle this one.

Phil grinds his teeth but obeys when Fury threatens to remove him from the Initiative program.

It’s not pretty, what he walks into. It’s the first time that Barnes has been out as part of a team. They couldn’t stop him, though they’d tried. Steve and him had barreled through the line, gotten to the roof and Thor and Stark had taken it from there.

As much as Phil was glad that the Captain had part of his old team back, was impressed by how quickly they fell into old habits, he couldn’t very well anticipate the churning in his gut at Steve facing off with someone who was trying to weaponize the serum. Remake it, use it for their own advantage. They’d already hurt one of his team, and he couldn’t do anything for the Avengers on stand down.

It was hard, but it ended quickly. The Captain, it turned out, could move quite a bit faster than even SHIELD had known, and down came an integral part of the group that had been one step ahead of Coulson’s team for awhile now. It helped that Steve finally felt better about bringing down someone that had friends in their clutches as well.

Barnes on the other hand…

He’d disappeared after the fight, much to everyone’s sudden flurry of action. They couldn’t very well track him in New York city without knowing where he’d head. The Captain suggested Brooklyn, Natasha was already on a computer in the Quin.

Then Fury called, said he was in medical, and that Miss Lewis sends her regards.

Phil is, above all else, always aware of his team... Or he tries to be. So when Steve blinks at the information over his comm, looking to him for clarification, the agent is already moving for one of May’s trucks to take him back to headquarters. The Captain falls in behind him and asks if this is normal, if Bucky has been seeing Darcy for very long.

“The occasional lunch with thrown utensils.”

“That… doesn’t make sense.”

“No. It doesn’t. I plan on finding out why.”

“I’d like to know myself.”

“Captain…”

“I’m coming, Agent Coulson.”

“Steve, she’s in medical. Too many people.”

“I’ll send Darcy my regards, Phil. But I’ll at least be in the waiting room.”

Phil, though he sighs out his nose silently, can see why he idolizes the other man. They have the same idea of team, if the storm cloud on the Captain's brow is anything to go by. So he leaves the tracing to Stark, Fitz, and Simmons, leaves the wrath to Thor and Natasha and Ward, and goes to see why two of their little teams have ended up entwined and completely silent about it all.

What the agent finds in the hospital room is not James Barnes holding Darcy Lewis’ hand and soft talking, not at all. What he finds, instead, is a soldier at the end of his assistant’s bed lecturing her about proper protocol and safety, and his assistant, despite one of her arms in a sling and ribs bruised, hurling ice chips at said soldier.

“Go to Hell, Barnes.”

“Been there. Done that.”

“Get your ass out of here.”

“You have no idea. You could have-”

“DIED. I KNOW.”

Darcy is panting and winced as she yelled, bringing Phil’s steps to scruff the young man at the end of her bed and throw him out. Despite being slightly smaller than James Barnes, he had adrenaline behind him and the welfare of his team in mind. He might also have a bit of surprise attack on his side, from the look on Barnes' face.

That he throws him into the chest of the Captain is no coincidence and Steve drags off the snarling soldier as Phil turns to Darcy.

“He’s a pain in the ass.”

“Yes. He is.”

“I hate him.”

“No. You don’t.”

The woman before him is strong, both in will and body and sometimes, even in influence. She has talent and skills no one else on his team does. She is a bright light among the dark shadows of their job. Yet, she lays there and bites her chapped lips with tears of pain in her eyes as Phil moves to sit on the edge of her bed, wrapping a hand around her fingers gently.

“He’s an ass. He keeps popping up in the corner of my eye. Never talks to me. Is just there, talking to someone when I come around a corner. Sliding into the seat next to me when I’m eating by myself. I hate it.”

“Why do you hate it, Dee?”

That brings Darcy’s gaze around and she struggles to sit up. Phil watches, not helping because she looks like she doesn’t need it. The movements make her gasp and cringe, but she’s gritting her teeth until she’s sitting up and presses into his chest.

Phil, for his part, does pull her into a hug as she sniffles. Ever the warrior, yet ever the young girl who believes in heroes.

He knows a thing or two about that.

“He won’t just talk to me. I’m like this weird enigma and he floats around me like I’m important but not enough to talk to. He used to, you know. At least he was. We just _chatted_. Like he couldn’t get enough of just talking to someone about simple things. And I mean, I’ve not got the hardest job here, but it was nice. Having someone to talk to.”

Her voice is soft with pain and not wanting to say what she is. She’s letting it slip out of her still, however, and Phil thinks that takes more courage than bottling it up. To let something out, sometimes.

“You like him.”

A nod.

“A lot.”

Another nod.

“Oh boy.”

“You can say that again.”

But she’s grinning, just a little, as she leans back and arranges herself against the pillows once more. She’s hurt and Phil stands, squeezing her fingers gently. He’ll call in the nurse, make sure she didn’t do anything sitting up and throwing things at Barnes.

“You want me to say something to him?”

“... Naw. Let him be. I. I don’t think he’s going to go away. Even if you said something.”

“You know, this might change his mind?”

“This what?”

“You hurt.”

“Pfft. Please. I’m totally fine.”

“Darcy…”

“Look, Mr. Smith. I’ve got a million and one problems, but most of them are boys and girls and aliens. A little bruising, some crazy sauce group with ideas to make a Captain America they can control? All in a day’s work.”

“They said you took a few down.”

“Righto, Boss Man. You have no idea what Little Coulson can do.”

“Do you have to call your taser that?”

“Yes? Hell-oooo. It’s totally perfect.”

“If you insist. Rest, Miss Lewis. I’ll make sure you have arrangements to go home as soon as able.”

“Oh. Really!? You mean all I had to do to get a vaca around here is get hurt?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

“What luck?”

Her smile is teasing, if tired, and Phil shakes his head, leaving her room to find a few nurses hovering. He lets them in to check on her as one pulls him aside, motioning down the hall to the staff break room where an apparently large argument has happened. Walking in to the Captain sipping on coffee with the newspaper and a scowling James Barnes worries him more than he’d like to admit.

All's well that ends well, he supposes.

“How is she?” Steve asks, setting down his paper. “Is Darcy alright?”

“Her humor is back.”

“That’s good.”

“It is.”

Phil turns to the Sergeant who has been attentively listening to the conversation, though eerily quiet through it. He eyes him as he steps forward, sitting in the chair between the soldier and the Captain.

“You upset her again, I’m kicking your ass back into a cell. You touch her in anyway that she disapproves of, I’ll do the same thing.”

Steve chokes on his coffee at the implications, blue eyes snapping to his friend, as James stares hard at the agent to his left.

“You can’t do that.”

Phil quirks a brow and a thin smile forms on his face that even makes the Captain sit a bit straighter.

“Watch me.”


	9. Fireworks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kitchen. Said something mini hot dog- OH COME ON, YOU BLUE SHELL ME ON RAINBOW ROAD!?

It’s summer and Stark has opened up the tower for a small party.

Small being all the Avengers and some of SHIELD, in hopes of getting Fury into a bathing suit. That the Director shows up in jeans and a t-shirt infuriates the engineer, who is quickly distracted by **Pepper** in a bathsuit. On all accounts, Fury mentions around his glass, she can pull one off better than he can.

Carol Danvers and Clint claim the TV inside for video games with a small clumping of others who claim that they get to play winner. Quicksilver has been banned from playing, already too fast as it is with the button pushing.

Thor and Bruce have deemed the barbeque their point of origin and domain, and Phil to the poolside with the Captain, chatting with Natasha and Sam Wilson over the computer databases that they just don’t understand, though the agent among them is quite pleased to say that SHIELD can crack into any of them in record time.

All in all, the party has gone very well for all of them and no one has invaded yet. Phil calls it a success, though the Captain claims they have to wait to see if Tony’s puppy dog following of Pepper gets him pushed into the pool or not.

Then it would be more of a success on many, many levels.

With all the hubbub, and being off duty, it takes the agent an hour to realize that he has yet to see his assistant or Barnes around the place in a few hours. Darcy had been advocating a ruckus by the video gamers and the soldier was last over by the bar, quietly talking with Fury and Sitwell about… something serious he can only assume. Then again, most the time, that’s just all of their expressions naturally.

The only reason that both missing causes Phil any alarm is that they’re the only two not accounted for when he does a quick head count.

They’ve been very good to stay out of each other’s ways. Darcy has kept to her space, Barnes to his, and never may the two twine outside of meetings with the Avengers. They talk from time to time in the hallways, but lunches have stopped happening. Phil does feel badly about that, having hoped that the young assassin (for he is young, even though he doesn’t have the start and stop of the Captain’s life to hold in his past) would meet Darcy on some sort of common ground.

That they are both missing means they might be together.

A problem, as Darcy has shown more and more annoyance at the man than not recently.

Phil, wandering towards the bar to grab a beer, doubted when he got there anything would come of it if they were within the same room. It’s why he hadn’t bothered with it, having watched Darcy peek in and out of Thor’s cape and assuming that the glaring of the soldier would be the end of their interaction that day. If they’re off by themselves, something stubbornly pounds in his chest to check on them, for Darcy’s sake. (Fatherly, that’s what people have taken to calling it. Phil’s dad senses. Peter said they could start a sense club, him, Phil and Jessica.) It’s enough of a yellow flag to get him to start looking for them, though.

After a few minutes of not seeing head or tail of either, the worry starts to set in and he asks.

“Hey Steve, have you seen Barnes anywhere?”

“Hmm? Oh. I thought he went to grab food from the kitchen.”

“Barton. Seen the Lewis girl?”

“Kitchen. Said something mini hot dog- OH COME ON, YOU BLUE SHELL ME ON RAINBOW ROAD!?”

Ignoring the shout from the archer to bring him some as he starts to head that way, Phil softens his steps as he gets closer to the door keeping the cooking area away from everywhere else. He can hear voices behind it, quick and quiet, and he pauses outside of it before he hears a door shut to another room from the other side. Only then does he peek in and sees a soda and whiskey sour left on the counter.

They’ve gone off… together. Phil’s brow quirks, wondering if he should really be following the young people. He knows what it’s like.

But these wouldn’t be stolen moments, surely. They aren’t fond of each other, or he doesn’t have any proof they are. So he follows the trail and sets off to find the two wayward souls, finally hearing shuffling behind the dining room door and a thump that was not entirely pleasing to hear.

To peek through the door though leaves him turning on his heel and moving far, far away.

Things he didn’t need to see: **That**.

Coming back through the kitchen door, he finds the Captain leaning against the counter smirking at him. Arms crossed and in his bathing suit, Steve Rogers is a sight to behold, and while it stops Phil in his tracks, the smirk makes him wonder if he’s missed something.

“See something you didn’t want to?”

“You knew.”

“I had an inkling.”

“They dislike each other, as far as I was aware.”

“He sneaks out to see her after she gets off of work. And every once and awhile, I find her sneaking out of the tower in the afternoon from his floor.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t kill him. Phil. Phil!”

“BARNES!”

There’s laughter in the distance as feet scamper and it’s not just Darcy’s tumbling giggle but a deep baritone that flows with hers as it fades into the distance. Steve has had enough mind to grab the other around the arm, Phil livid as he turns to him and pokes a finger into a bare, very muscular chest.

“You **knew**.”

“Can’t blame a guy for keeping his best friend’s secret.”

“I can.”

“You won’t.”

“I could.”

“He’s happy. **She’s** happy.”

“I should have been informed-”

“Of the sex life of your assistant agent?”

Phil’s face twists and he rubs his forehead with a disgusted noise, followed by a chuckle that turns into soft but full laughter. The Captain raises a brow, though his nose crinkles as his gaze flickers to the door behind the agent.

“What are you laughing about?”

“Oh. Nothing,” Phil offers as he rights himself and slips from kitchen, away from the noises he can only assume are happening somewhere only the Captain can hear.

“Nothing, huh?”

“Well… It’s just that Mr. and Mrs. Lewis will be down right pleased that their daughter is with a soldier like her brother was.”

“Darcy has parents?”

“Of course Darcy has parents.”

Steve’s blue eyes grow a bit in size and his grin turns sly, a small chuckle coming from his lips as he leads Phil outside once more.

“Well. I can’t wait for Buck to figure that one out.”

A few moments later, when Barton comes shrieking out onto the patio about sex in the bathroom and how he cannot unsee what he has, Barnes trailing after him with a scowl and Darcy laughing her ass off as she pads behind both, all Phil can do is smile.

Somehow, it’s worked. Despite the whispering and pointing between the two at himself and the Captain, he can’t think of a better way for Darcy to stay out of trouble than to be with the man looking at her like she’s something precious and new. Oh yes, he knows that look, he decides as his own gaze turns to where the Captain and Natasha are trying to calm Barton down around their own laughter, the Captain's arm around Natasha's shoulders to keep him upright.

He knows that look very well, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so this part of the story ends! I do love the Ducky and will more than likely write a ton more on them. Especially after Captain America: Winter Soldier comes out and I have a better understanding of how the MCU is going to take things. Thank you all who read this and left comments! I truly enjoy writing this pair and to see others gain joy from reading them is fantastic! 
> 
> See you next time. *waves*


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